Overview and CQC Inspections

OverallOutstanding

Our inspector's description of this service

Last updated 23 February 2017

Cestria Health Centre provides care and treatment to approximately 11,717 patients from the Chester le Street area of County Durham. The practice is part of the NHS North Durham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and operates on a Personal Medical Services (PMS) contract.

The practice provides services from the following address, which we visited during this inspection:

Whitehill Way

Chester le Street

County Durham

DH2 3DJ

The surgery is located in an extended purpose built health centre. All reception and consultation rooms are fully accessible for patients with mobility issues and there is an elevator for patients needing to access the upper floor of the building. An on-site car park is available which includes dedicated disabled car parking spaces. A pharmacy is attached to the building.

The surgery is open from 8am to 6pm on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday (appointments from 8am to 11.30am and 2pm to 6pm) and from 8am to 8pm on a Thursday (appointments from 8am to 11.30 am and 2pm to 8pm). It is also open on occasional Saturdays from 9am to 1pm depending on need.

The service for patients requiring urgent medical attention out-of-hours is provided by the NHS 111 service.

Cestria Health Centre offers a range of services and clinic appointments including ante-natal, family planning, long-term condition and travel advice clinics. As some of the practice GPs also had special interests and expertise in areas including diabetes, cardiology, minor surgery, sexual health, contraception and ear nose and throat the practice also delivered specialist clinics for the area.

The practice consists of:

Three GP partners (all male)

Eight salaried GPs (two male and six female)

Two nurse practitioners (one male and one female)

One nurse prescriber (female)

One practice nurse (female)

Three health care assistants (female)

17 non-clinical members of staff including a practice manager, personal assistant, team leaders, receptionists, secretaries and administration assistants.

The practice is a teaching and training practice and involved in the training of qualified doctors wishing to pursue a career in general practice as well as the teaching of undergraduate medical students learning about GP practice.

The practice is also a member of Chester-le-Street GP Federation which is a group of practices working collaboratively to co-commission services and to share responsibility for developing and delivering high quality, patient focused services for the local community.

The average life expectancy for the male practice population is 78 (CCG average 78 and national average 79) and for the female population 82 (CCG average 82 and national average 83).

At 48.8%, the percentage of the practice population reported as having a long standing health condition was lower than the CCG average of 58.9% and national average of 54%. Generally a higher percentage of patients with a long standing health condition can lead to an increased demand for GP services. At 62.8% the percentage of the practice population recorded as being in paid work or full time education was higher than the CCG average of 57.8% and national average of 61.5%). The practice area is in the seventh most deprived decile. Deprivation levels affecting children were lower than both CCG and national averages. Deprivation levels affecting adults were lower than the CCG average but slightly higher than the national average.

Inspection ratings

We rate most services according to how safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led they are, using four levels:

Outstanding – the service is performing exceptionally well.

Good – the service is performing well and meeting our expectations.

Requires improvement – the service isn't performing as well as it should and we have told the service how it must improve.

Inadequate – the service is performing badly and we've taken enforcement action against the provider of the service.

No rating/under appeal/rating suspended – there are some services which we can’t rate, while some might be under appeal from the provider. Suspended ratings are being reviewed by us and will be published soon.

Ticks and crosses

We don't rate every type of service. For services we haven't rated we use ticks and crosses to show whether we've asked them to take further action or taken enforcement action against them.

There's no need for the service to take further action. If this service has not had a CQC inspection since it registered with us, our judgement may be based on our assessment of declarations and evidence supplied by the service.

The service must make improvements.

At least one standard in this area was not being met when we inspected the service and we have taken enforcement action.